Fight childcare with fire

for anyone kiddo curious, money anxious.

I worried about childcare.

It was yet another thing I did not know how I was going to afford.
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In the early years of having kiddos the cost of childcare is the biggest expense you can expect to face.

Where we live, in the london suburbs, we were looking at nurseries that were in the range of £70 – £130 per day.

That’s £18k to £33k per year for 5 days a week.

£18k per year. At least. On top of everything else.

This is untenable for most actors.

3 days of childcare means you’ll both need to work a 5 day week.
But then who’s going to look after the baby for the other 2 days
And will you ever be able to find time to focus on acting work?
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Not easy.

However,

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We are currently living in a moment:

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The UK government is providing financial support for all parents who meet certain criteria.

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They are giving children between the ages of 9 months and 4 years old 30hrs a week free childcare.

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This means instead of £18k per year you are looking at around £7k (or instead of £350 p/w it’s £140 p/w).

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That is assuming you need 5 days.

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If someone is able to look after them for 2 days (incredibly kind grandparents perhaps?) the government will have you pretty much completely covered.

Check if your eligible:

1. You and your partner need to both be in work (self employed counts as work, even if you are not specifically in work when you apply)
2. You must each earn at least £2,539.68 per year but no more than £100,000 per year
   1. this is by no means perfect:
      1. A couple with one partner who doesn’t work and the other making £100,001 (a combined salary of £100,001) will not be eligible, whereas a couple who both earn £99,000 (a combined salary of £198,000) would be eligible.**

Find full details here.

Apply here when you’re ready.

A few things to note:

• You can apply when your baba is 23 weeks old.
• They don’t make it super easy – online forms and nonsense bureaucracy (keep reminding yourself that you’ll save around £11,000 per year)
• You have to re-confirm your eligibility every 3 months – if you don’t you’ll have an expensive 12 weeks in store (set a calendar reminder and your golden)

So much craziness comes with having a kid, the worry that you can’t afford to keep them alive whilst you work your ass off to keep them alive shouldn’t be part of it.

I hope this helps.

(we are 18ish months in and still relatively alive)

**thank you readers L&P for flagging this idiocy.

Dwindlekins and his ST journal

My audition confidence has a time limit.

After an obvious win like a callback or a job, I’m sure that this confident, self assured dude, this f*cking guy: 😎, this is me set now, for life.

My instincts come easy, I’m taking risks left right and centre, I’m not in my head – christ I’m even enjoying myself.

Confident AL* is here to stay.

But after a familiarly sweet cocktail of rejection, silence, uncertainty and a good ol’ fashioned dryspell, all that confidence has drained and drained away.

I second guess myself, “i can’t possibly be that” becomes my anthem and all my choices come out so sloppy and boring Al AI would be proud.

And all that’s left for this sad sack of meek to think is, “how the frick am I back in this hole again”

so

When I begin to feel the low confidence shit cycle starting up again, I tend to do the following:

1. After a tape, I open up my self tape journal (exactly what it sounds like)
2. I make a quick note of what I thought I did well and what I can improve next time round.
   (e.g. 👍US accent was solid 👎 you were moving about all over the shop)
3. Improving that becomes my singular goal for the next one.
4. Making that small improvement gives me a confidence boost for the one after that.
5. And we cycle back upward.

This is our little 1%.

Mental.

*when i’m referring to myself in 3rd person I have to type my name AL now because of stupid AI.

WTF do producers do?

I had no idea what a producer does, why are there so many different kinds, how much creative control do they actually have and who’s my boss?

This is the video I didn’t go to film school for:

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This weeks recommendation:

House. Of. Dynamite.

In a cinema.

Please.

Please.

for the love of god.

in a cinema.

With lots of people if you can (here’s why if you missed last week).

You vs. the Industry

Reader Wins

Overcoming the ridiculous odds we are all up against and sticking it to the industry’s stupid face this week, is friend of the letter Mr. Joe Eyre who is about to set sail on his 50th audiobook.

That’s mad.

What’s madder, is that he has done this entirely without a VO agent.

That’s mad badass.

We will be digging deeper into how and how and how he did this in a future issue but for now

well fucking done mate.

you can check out his latest work here

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(We’d love to shout about your/anyone who deserves it’s wins. Just reply to this email and we’ll shout them out. The only way to beat this industry is to smile in it’s face and say fuck you i’m doing it anyway👍)

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I’d love to hear from you – I read and reply to every email.

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Change the game up and have a cracking week,

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A x